Prosecutors Are Using Jailhouse Snitches to Send Innocent People to Death Row

“The problem is the desperation to get out, and the willingness of the district attorney to use us.”

For the last 2 decades, Curtis Flowers has been on death row in Mississippi for a 1996 quadruple murder. He has consistently maintained his innocence and appealed his case 6 different times on issues ranging from racial bias in jury selection to prosecutorial misconduct. But each time, District Attorney Doug Evans succeeded in keeping Flowers behind bars, largely because of his reliance on jailhouse informants who have insisted that Flowers confessed to the killings. But now, during the 11-episode American Public Media podcast In the Dark that chronicled the case, Evans’ star witness confessed that he made it all up.
Read more: Mother Jones